I am a PhD Student in Finance at the Swiss Finance Institute at USI Lugano.
I will be on the 2025-2026 academic job market.
My research is on Information and Financial Markets, with a focus on:
- Data Economy
- Institutional Investors
- Asset Pricing
Job Market Paper
Asset (and Data) Managers ⬝ Recipient of the INQUIRE Europe 2025 Research Prize
⬝ WFA Brattle Group Ph.D. Candidate Award
⬝ INVERCO Best Paper in Asset Management at 32nd Finance Forum
⬝ Best Ph.D. Student Paper at the 7th FutFinInfo Conference
⬝ FMARC Best Ph.D. Student Paper
➢ Abstract [+]
This paper studies whether asset management companies use customer data to attract capital. Exploiting information from their websites' codes, I track when fund managers begin collecting and analyzing data on their potential customers using tools like Google Analytics or A/B testing. I show that funds adopting such technologies attract 1.5% higher annual flows and charge higher fees, despite no improvement in performance. These results are concentrated in retail share classes and decline with competition as more rival funds adopt similar tools. At the fund-family level, adopters expand their product offerings, and new funds focus more on retail-oriented themes. Within existing funds, I find evidence of changes in prospectus content and greater sales efforts rather than product differentiation. Overall, data technologies allow managers to raise more capital and charge higher fees, without passing these monetary gains on to investors. Technological innovation in asset management extends beyond portfolio allocation decisions, and it affects how funds attract and retain capital.
USI Lugano
Via Buffi 13, Lugano - 6900
Switzerlandmarco.zanotti[at]usi.ch
SSRN